


Road to awe

by Vampiric_Charms



Category: Criminal Minds (US TV)
Genre: Angst, Anxiety, F/F, Gen, Hurt/Comfort
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-22
Updated: 2020-06-22
Packaged: 2021-03-04 06:40:08
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,402
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24859288
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Vampiric_Charms/pseuds/Vampiric_Charms
Summary: Emily’s funeral was tomorrow and JJ didn't know what to do.
Relationships: Jennifer "JJ" Jareau & Emily Prentiss, Jennifer "JJ" Jareau/Emily Prentiss
Comments: 2
Kudos: 52





	Road to awe

**Author's Note:**

> Set at the end of "Lauren", s6e18, and there are definitely some spoilers here! Thankfully we all know how this turns out in the end, but small warnings for mentions of death, surgery, and violence.
> 
> Enjoy!

Emily’s funeral was tomorrow.

She wasn’t dead, not yet, and JJ sat at her bedside in the hospital as the minutes pushed on. But she hadn’t woken up. She hadn’t opened her eyes or spoken or even moved. The doctor who had taken over Emily’s case when she arrived through backdoor channels in Bethesda said it was normal, and that this level of physical trauma to a person’s body usually took a great toll. He told JJ to be patient, to keep her company and not lose hope.

JJ hadn’t lost hope, exactly. Not really. Hope, however, had been greatly endangered when JJ watched Emily code in the ambulance before the EMTs were able to stabilize her, and even more so when her surgery had taken hours, leaving her pale with blood loss and covered in bandages, sutures, bruises, cuts. There were so many tubes - IV line in her elbow, oxygen line to her nose, monitor line to her finger - and tiny little sounds ticking away the measure of her heart. 

Yes, Emily was alive - but JJ did not know if she would stay that way.

She picked up Emily’s limp hand from the bed and held it tightly between both of hers. Emily’s bitten fingernails were dirty, blood in the creases and grime caked under the thin sliver against her skin. She didn’t know if she could do this, sit by and watch her friend die. It was too much. All of this was too much.

“Emily,” she murmured, pulling Emily’s hand up toward her face to press a gentle, gentle kiss to those raw fingertips. “Wake up, please wake up.”

JJ didn’t know why she expected anything to happen, and nothing did. She squeezed Emily’s hand tightly, trying to take solace from the fact that her skin was warm, warm and alive. She kissed Emily’s fingers again, and a third time. Trying desperately to keep her tethered there to life with the touch, tender after so much violence.

She had left her team behind once the news had been delivered, and guilt hammered at her heart for leaving them there, for leaving herself all alone. Even Will didn’t know the truth, thinking she was with Spencer while she was _here_ , lying to them all. It was for the best, all of this was, and she knew that - yet she wished everything was different. 

She wished for a lot of things.

Right now, what she wished for the most was for Emily to just - to just open her eyes. That was all. Just a flutter of her dark eyelashes, a sign of life on her lifeless face. But instead, the only thing continually reminding JJ that Emily was still there and still alive was the steady beeping of the heart monitor. JJ clung to it as tightly as she clung to Emily’s hand.

Suddenly, JJ remembered the little package of baby wipes in her purse, left there for baby emergencies. She carefully set down Emily’s hand and leaned over to dig it out. There were only a few wipes left, their need becoming less and less as her children grew up, but she tugged one out, taking in the familiar scent, the scent that reminded her of motherhood and her family. It was comforting in that moment, and she took up Emily’s hand again.

Gingerly, not wanting to hurt her even as she slept, JJ rubbed the wipe over Emily’s fingers, removing the grime as best she could. Her nails were bitten so far down that her cuticles had bled, mixed with the blood from her other wounds and who knew what else.

JJ glanced at Emily’s face, trying to discern if she felt anything, if she was aware of JJ there holding her hand. Emily’s features were as still as they had been in the ambulance, when her heart stopped.

“You’ve bitten your nails down to nubs,” JJ murmured, to Emily but also to fill the room with sound when everything was so silent. “I should have noticed, Em. I’m sorry. I’m -” She choked off a little cry, one she hadn’t allowed in its entirety yet. “I’m sorry,” she finished in a whisper.

She scrubbed Emily’s nail beds and bit her lip against the well of tears that burned her eyes. Emily’s skin came clean easily, though JJ probably spent more time than was needed on making sure every bit of dirt she could get was gone. She just didn’t want to let go, didn’t want to put her hand down and lose that contact. But after another few moments she did, setting it back against the blanket as gently as she could, and pulled out another wipe for her other hand, the one on the other side of the bed.

A small tear gathered in the lower lashes of one eye and JJ rubbed it away with the heel of her hand. Not yet, not yet. If she cried she knew she would never stop.

“I’ll wash your hair for you as soon as I'm allowed to,” JJ told her, voice strained. Emily’s hair was, by all accounts, gross - the same filth that was on her fingers had been ground into the strands, and JJ was pained to see it. But she focused on Emily’s hands, giving the second one just as much attention as the first.

But when both hands were clean, JJ felt at a loss. What was she supposed to do? How was she supposed to cope here, all alone with Emily between life and death right in front of her? It was too, too much.

There were nights, long past now, when JJ would go to Emily for comfort after those cases that stuck, after the ones that ended badly. Emily would hold her, let her cry or talk or sit in silence as JJ found herself again through the fog. She wanted so badly for that now, for Emily to hug her and tell her everything would be okay. JJ didn’t know if they would ever have that again, even if - when, _when_ \- Emily recovered. Plans had already been put in place, and JJ might never see her again after this was done.

Overcome at the thought, JJ kicked off her shoes and, against her better judgement, climbed up onto the bed beside Emily and stretched her legs out straight, trying to take up as little space as possible. The IV line was in her other arm, and so JJ grabbed onto this one, resting her head so, so lightly on Emily’s shoulder. Close to her collarbone, where she could feel the warmth of her skin. 

She wanted to wrap herself around Emily’s damaged body, to hold her through her suffering, but knew she shouldn’t; there were delicate stitches on her stomach, bandaged wounds all over that JJ may not have seen during the panicked ride to the hospital.

“Please,” she whispered. “Just wake up, please.”

As before, nothing happened. JJ burrowed her head against the pillow now, nose against Emily’s warm neck. Emily smelled like she always did, but it was tinged with sweat this time, with dried ichor and antiseptic from the surgery. She smelled like herself and also like a different person, a person she should never have had to be.

Not knowing what else to do, JJ began to talk, to fill the quiet when it felt too overwhelming. “You’re going to be so upset, Emily, I’m sorry. Hotch and I - we’re only trying to protect you, please don’t hate us.” Her voice sounded muffled, stiff in the hushed room, and it hurt to hear even as she wasn’t able to stop. “You like Paris, don’t you? That’s where we’re sending you, you’ll be safe there. He won’t find you again, I promise.”

And then, “Everyone thinks you’re dead.” It came out with the sob she had been holding back, and the dam opened. “I don’t know if I can do this, Em,” she said, crying in full now. Tears spilled over her face, over her nose and down her temple to dampen the pillow under her head. “Wake up, okay?”

She lied there curled up beside Emily in the thin hospital bed and wept until she became numb, until the rhythmic tone of the heart monitor lulled her into an in-between place where thoughts were too heavy.

Emily’s funeral was tomorrow and JJ did not know what to do.


End file.
